House of worship should be the safest place: Minister

One of citizen took a photograph of a banner that forbid the funeral prayer of religious blasphemy supporter at Al-Jihad Mosque, Setiabudi, Jakarta, Sunday (Feb 26).

Foto: Republika/Prayogi

REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Minister of Religious Affairs Lukman Hakim Saifuddin called all elements of societies to keep houses of worship to be safe from any social conflict. The calling arose as there were many posters in mosques promoting a call not to perform funeral prayer for the corpse of religious blasphemies’ supporters.

“How we could make the house of worship to be a Holy place, to teach love and affection, to be the safest place,” said Lukman in Jakarta on Tuesday.

Lukman said the regional offices of Ministry of Religious Affairs had tried to reduce the fluctuation in all over Indonesia. The ministry used a personal approach to the mosque men and other houses of worship’s manager to keep the harmony among the religious believers in Indonesia.

He said religions had a function to unite the plural societies in Indonesia. Therefore, he called the societies to have the same perception on how to practice the religions among the multicultural societies. It should be applied not only between the religious believers, but also the same one.

Lukman said tolerance was very important to unite all the different perspectives within a religion. Religions should use persuasive approaches, preaching, and efforts to avoid violence.